I have written this post about my recent foray into the world of competitive cake-making. I am hoping that it will encourage fellow cake-makers to have a go themselves. It is a 'warts and all' account of my personal experience. If any of my friends, cakey or otherwise, are reading, you never know you might get a mention. If any of my lovely customers are reading this....STOP HERE! And if my therapist is reading this.... yes, there's still work to be done!
The balmy days of June seem such a long time ago, but that is when I finally decided to enter a cake competition for the first time. I chose the biggest and best competition to enter, Cake International, held at the NEC in Birmingham last weekend. Crazy? I might be, considering my propensity to self-doubt. It wasn't until early July that I actually plucked up the courage to seal my fate, and press the 'ENTER' button. The hotel was booked before I had actually pressed that button!
Courage was something I needed because I really didn't believe in myself, I didn't believe I had the right to a place alongside the country's top cake makers. In previous years, I have spent hours looking at all the entries, admiring the skill and artistry. Something quite ordinary happened a couple of years ago, but something that has had a profound effect on me. I was invited to join a Facebook group for Hampshire Cake Makers. Eeeek, some of my real cake heroes were actually in this group. The wonderfully talented Kelly Hallett of Kelly's Cake-Away; the amazingly brilliant wedding cake designer, Emma Waddington of Gifted Heart Cakes; the beautiful and talented Sam Stringer of Treat Me Sweet; super lovely Joanne Cox of JoJo's Cupcake Madness; lovely Jade Thomas of Jade's Iced Gems; the hilarious and irreverent Jill the Cakemaker, to name but a few of the 40+ ladies that form this group. Far from being competitive, the ladies in this group have been so encouraging and supportive, about things inside and outside the cake world. They encouraged me to have a go and enter, suggesting that I had a rightful place in the competition. I am really grateful to them for their continuous support.
Which class to enter was the next question. I decided on a "A Wedding Cake of Three or More Tiers'. I think it turned out to be a wedding cake of three or more tears! The rules were quite simply explained as:
"Style and covering of competitor's choice - royal icing, sugarpaste, chocolate or other coating. Wired sugar flowers and foliage, ribbons and artificial stamens are permitted, but must not penetrate the surface of the cake unless a posy pick is used. Dummies are permitted. All display drapes must be contained within the permitted area. No height restriction. To fit within a base area of 48cm (18 inches)."
Sounds simple doesn't it?! I just needed a design. I hoped to make something a little out of the ordinary. I've always been a lover of tropical places, of course the sunshine helps but the riot of colours in their flora and fauna is a major attraction. I discussed my ideas with my lovely friend Sarah whilst on holiday in Spain. She is also a cake-maker, owner of the Little English Cake Company, based in the Murcia region of Spain. Strangely we became friends before either of us were cake makers. I really valued her opinion. We decided, over a bottle of vino, that such vivid flowers needed a simple cake to show them off. And so I started sketching, with this being my final sketch. I always find it interesting how close an actual cake is to the initial sketch. Sometimes it's nothing like it as I change my plans and the design evolves along the way. But this one is remarkably close.
Not having a clue how to make these flowers, I bought Alan Dunn's book "Tropical and Exotic Flowers for Cakes". This book is a wonderful guide to making these very specialist flowers, however I think it's fair to say you need to have some experience of making sugar flowers before embarking on these. I am so glad I invested in this book. I had the pleasure of talking to Alan Dunn himself about my cake during the exhibition.
Having convinced myself I might actually be able to do this. I ordered all the supplies I needed. I actually felt a bit excited when everything arrived and I unpacked the boxes. I had the dummy cakes, loads of flowerpaste, a ton of sugarpaste, all the wires and tapes, and just about every shade of petal dust known to mankind!
So with six weeks to go, I started making leaves and petals, hundreds of them! I didn't have any specialist cutters so they were all hand-cut from paper templates I made. Because I was doing a little bit here and there....after all I had weeks to go :) ....this seemed to take forever!
In fact, at the outset I decided to record exactly how many hours this cake would take me to make. I am confident that this is a design that will appeal to many brides-to-be. Therefore I thought it would be useful to know how many hours it took in order to quote for it in the future. Fortunately, now that I have done it once, it won't take so long next time. Would anyone like to guess how many hours this took from start to finish?
With the petals all made and dried, the messy part began, dusting all the petals and leaves with petal dust to turn them into all their beautiful colours. Every day my hands would end up a different colour, prompting me to try and keep my hands in my pockets at school pick up time. The deep, deep pink of the Cordyline leaves produced the worst staining to my hands and my work surface. (I hear you, but I just can't do this delicate work with gloves on.) After dusting each piece, it then has to be steamed to set the colour.
Everything was going swimmingly, and then for some reason, with three weeks to go, I had a major 'wobble' ....confidence seeping out of every pore! On this occasion it took a few very wise words from Sarah in Spain to get me back on track, coupled with constant words of encouragement from the ever supportive lovelies known as Joanne, Sophie and Ellie. I realised just how lucky I am to have friends that always know the right thing to say.
As if self-doubt wasn't enough, I have this terrible 'trait' of being able to produce my best work whilst careering towards the time's up buffer. I really wish it wasn't this way, it's just so stressful! So in my final week I knuckled down, put in three full 8-hour days to get it finished. I had amassed a huge number of leaves and petals and set about assembling all the flowers, the branches of leaves and strings of berries and buds. The final day was spent making the bouquets and assembling the cake.
And here it is. A riot of colourful Birds of Paradise, Zantedeschia, Cordyline, Ixia buds, Devil's Ivy, Piper Nigrum, King Tillandsia and Lollipop vines.
Having assembled the cake, I stood back to admire it and then had the realisation that I now had to transport it safely to Birmingham, a two-hour drive away. Yes, I really should have considered this much earlier in the process, probably even at the design stage! Lessons have been learned. I consoled myself with the fact I had made spares of each and every leaf, petal, berry and bud.....luckily!
The day before setting off for Birmingham I tried to wrap my precious cake in bubble wrap. This broke the tips of some of the very delicate petals. So I had to use some of the spare petals and re-do a couple of the 'bouquets'. I decided to transport the cake as it was in the back of my car. It arrived in one piece....that was until I got it out of the car. Holding my prized possession I reached up to get the boot lid to pull it down and the cake gently tipped towards me slightly...just enough to crack a few more petals.
Having never entered the competition before I was unsure of how and where I could rectify this. I had all my remaining spares and my emergency repair toolkit. I needn't have worried so much though. There were tables laid out all around the hall for us poor cake-makers to 'fix our issues' and reassemble as necessary. The tables were full of us, and equally full of the wise ones who had decided to assemble their masterpieces on site instead. As long as you allow enough time it's fine. Everything has to be done and in place by 8.45 a.m., luckily I arrived at 7.30 a.m. Unfortunately a few people had to receive the dreaded 'damaged in transit' sign to display.
With my cake all fixed I had to set it carefully down in my allotted space, and leave my 'baby' there. I was now at the mercy of the inscrutable judges!
My fabulous friend Ellie from
The Mummy Diary joined me for the day. She didn't say it, but I'm sure she was fed up with constantly being led back to the competition area so that I could check on my baby, unconsciously hoping each time she would reassure me that I deserved my place at the table. Each time she graciously did this, without groaning once!
Despite these constant checks we did manage to see everything at the Exhibition, not spend too much money and attend a workshop with famous cake designer Lindy Smith. We learned how to use the stencilling technique to decorate cookies for Christmas. We both enjoyed it and had a laugh, mostly at my expense! We even managed to fit in a bite to eat and a bottle of vino....or two in Ellie's case!
The next morning I received a text from Kelly, who had got back to her 'baby' super early, to say I had been awarded a Certificate of Merit from the judges. I'm really pleased with this for my first ever entry. I have definitely got the bug and so you'll see a piece from me at Alexandra Palace in April, and I will be back at Birmingham in November too. I'm just trying to convince Sarah to pop back from Spain to join me at Ally Pally in April.
My lovely friend Kelly got 'Gold' and, beautiful Sam got 'Silver'. Another Hampshire cake maker, Niki Tompkinson, got 'Bronze', all three in the wedding cake category. And the fabulous JoJo, who submitted two entries into the cupcake class, got 'Gold' and 'Silver'. A very successful competition for the Hampshire cake ladies. Unfortunately talent isn't contagious. However, they have given me something much better, they have given me the ability to believe in myself. There's nothing better than praise and encouragement from your peers.
I can't say it wasn't nerve wracking, but I hope I have encouraged you to take the plunge, not put you off.
It was a wonderful experience for me all round. It was great to spend the weekend with special friends, old and new. It was a truly memorable weekend, one that I will always remember, and one that I very much hope to repeat.
